Andy Kaufman

by Bob Zmuda

  When Clifton got out of the car, a small band of Hef’s security surrounded him. But by now word had reached the party inside that Clifton (wink-wink, Jim) was outside starting trouble. Everyone in the house rushed out to catch the fun. I remember Jon Lovitz was one of the first to arrive. Carrey as Clifton was a dream come true for Lovitz. This was history in the making.

  Clifton demanded that “Hefner come out of his den of iniquity to personally greet me or I’m going to leave.” A few nervous minutes went by while Clifton slugged from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s he was holding. Meanwhile, Lynne was out of the limo diligently shooting away. Soon the master of the house made an appearance with the two luscious blonde twins he was banging at the time. Hefner was ecstatic that Jim … I … I mean Clifton … was there. He improvised with Tony. “Did I invite you?” Clifton reached into his pocket and pulled out his invitation, which was nothing more than a crumpled-up, Jack Daniel’s-stained Xerox of the original invite. Hefner looked at it front and back. “It’s a Xerox! And it’s sticky!” The gathered crowd laughed. Clifton fired back, “That’s right. So it’s a Xerox. And I had to relieve myself on the way here!” The crowd loved Tony’s inappropriate honesty. Hef turned to his assembled guests and in a loud voice said, “Should we let him in?” A roar of approval went up. With that, Hef put his arm around Tony’s shoulder and said, “Come on in.”

  The gate had been breached. Let the festivities begin. Inside, there were Playboy Bunnies in the skimpiest of lingerie, with tits strategically overflowing their halters. Hef knew each of their names and prided himself on introducing them to his special guest. Some of the girls would occasionally screw up and say, “Hi, Jim” instead of “Hi, Tony.” Hef would shoot them a scornful look. Hef made the rounds, his arm still slung around Clifton’s shoulder, not letting go until he had introduced his “prize possession” to the most powerful in the room. Only then did he release him to the bundle of Bunnies, who swarmed around him like bees. Clifton was in heaven. One of the girls whispered in his ear, “I’m your biggest fan.” Clifton whispered back, “So meet me in the grotto in a half hour. You like anal?” The girl’s face at first looked shocked, but quickly recovered. After all, this wasn’t just any schmuck who wanted up her poop shoot, but Jim Carrey. Twenty million dollars per picture. The Bunnies lived at the Mansion just hoping a celeb of his magnitude would take them away from it all.

  An hour later, Clifton was getting down on the dance floor. All eyes were on him as he twisted, dipped, and even moonwalked. The dancing caused him to sweat quite profusely. And I worried that Clifton’s prosthetics would start coming loose.

  Tony waved Lynne over and frantically whispered in her ear, “Call Jim. Tell him to hold off for another hour. I need to knock off one of the Bunnies in the grotto before he gets here. This may just be the greatest day of my life.” Lynne called Jim, who was sitting in his limo drinking a milkshake waiting for us to give him the OK to come up. She got him to hold off for a while, but on the second call he said he was on his way no matter what. The plan was that Jim was going to show up and Hefner would be stunned, not knowing who Clifton was, thinking it had been Jim. Gotcha, Hef! If Jim was going to show up soon, Clifton had to move into overdrive. He quickly grabbed one of the hottest Bunnies there, took her into a nearby bathroom, and closed the door. Within minutes, she was all over him. No less than ten minutes later, he gave her a facial. When he finally unlocked the bathroom door, three other Bunnies admonished the girl for “keeping Tony for herself.” Clifton was just about ready to go back into the bathroom with the other three when one of Hef’s security people came up to him. “Mr. Clifton, Mr. Hefner’s been looking for you. Follow me.” Clifton excused himself to the girls, “Don’t go anywhere. There’s plenty of me to go around, if you catch my drift,” accentuating “drift” by grabbing his dick through his pants. They giggled. As the guard escorted Tony to Hefner, I (Bob) couldn’t help thinking that I must have died and gone to heaven. What it must be like to be Jim Carrey every day!

  When Hef spotted Tony, he ran up and once again put that trusting arm around his prize. “Tony,” he said, “I want you to meet a very good friend of mine.” He walked over to a table and he tapped a very distinguished older gentleman with perfectly coiffed white hair. “Tony Clifton, meet Tony Curtis.” Curtis was everything an aging movie idol should be. He wore an ascot and had on his arm a six-foot-two-inch long-legged blonde bombshell—his recent wife. Curtis was quite impressed meeting Jim … I mean Tony. So was his wife, who gave Clifton a look that if he wanted some, it was his for the taking. Curtis knew that look and gave his own look to Tony signaling that it was OK with him and perhaps they could share.

  By now, time had run out, and with Hef’s arm still snugly around Clifton’s shoulder, enter super-duper star Jim Carrey. The room went silent. You could hear a pin drop. Wait a second, if that was Jim, who was this impostor that Hef had his arm around? It all happened so fast, but felt like slow motion. It seemed that everyone had spotted Jim but Hef. When he did, it was one of the greatest double takes known to man. Remember, Hef’s arm is around Clifton. He turns his head and spots Carrey. It doesn’t register at first and he turns back to Clifton. Then it hits him like a ton of bricks. His head snaps back to Jim, who waves at him. Hef snaps his head back to Clifton and quickly throws his arm off of this charlatan’s shoulder. Hef stands there frozen in time, trying to make sense of it all. Soon, his face begins to turn bright red, while his twitching jugular vein becomes more and more pronounced. He looked as if he was going to have a heart attack. (I was worried for him, for he had a heart attack not more than a year before.) He was furious and grabbed Tony’s wrist hard, real hard. Through clenched teeth, he whispered in Clifton’s ear angrily, “I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, but if all these people weren’t around, I’d have my goons break every fucking bone in your body.”

  By now, his security had sensed something was terribly wrong. Within seconds, they were all over Clifton and Lynne. Hef whispered something in a security guard’s ear and they were quickly escorted not too gently out of the Mansion. Hef composed himself and went to greet the real Jim Carrey. Remember, the deal with Jim was that under no circumstances was he going to come to Clifton’s and Lynne’s rescue. Lynne and I were on our own and were unceremoniously hustled out through the garden behind a shed. I was scared that I was going to get quite a beating, especially when I saw the guard I had insulted at the front gate on the way in. Quickly walking over, the guard snarled, “I knew you were an asshole.” He reached for Lynne’s camera. She frantically tried to pull an old switcheroo on the tapes but wasn’t fast enough. We were then quickly taken to the back gate, next to the trash cans, and thrown out. It took a while for us to realize we weren’t killed, and then we broke into uproarious laughter. Lynne kept repeating, “Holy shit! Holy shit!”

  Meanwhile, back inside, Hef is explaining to Jim what just took place. Jim’s playing dumb. Hef explains that he got a call from Jim saying he was coming as Clifton. Jim stops him right there and says, “Mr. Hefner, I never called you.” Hef shakes his head in disbelief and says, more to himself than to Jim, “These people were good. Real good!”

  When Lynne and I returned to Jim’s house that evening, I removed Clifton’s prosthetic pieces from my face. I was ecstatic. Had we really pulled it off? We stayed there late, waiting for Jim to return so we could compare notes. A couple of hours later he did. Jim was overjoyed that we put one over on Hef. Hef told him how he had introduced Clifton to the royalty of Hollywood, thinking it was Jim. I’m sure the Bunny with Clifton’s facial was scrubbing her face raw with a washrag at this point, realizing she was facialed by a fraud. Jim, Lynne, and I celebrated by uncorking a bottle of Jim’s finest champagne. We toasted Andy Kaufman and, most important, Jim got to see firsthand how a Kaufman prank could be pulled off and especially the lesson of how dangerous it sometimes could be. Lynne and I could have gotten the shit kicked out of us, and Hef’s people would have been justified,
as we were party crashers, and obnoxious ones to boot. To this day, I’ve got to salute Hefner and his crew for keeping their cool. Lynne and I knew from working with Andy in the past that possible physical harm came with the territory. If you weren’t willing to bleed for your art, then why do it?

  I woke up the next morning feeling both happy and rotten. It hit me that it was only a matter of time for Hef to put two and two together. Bill Zehme, who had called me originally telling me how Jim was coming as Clifton, would have compared notes with Hef. They would have realized that Jim was lying to him and that Bob Zmuda had fucked with him. Not good. Hef had attended a few Comic Reliefs in the past and I didn’t want to be on his shit list. Remember, I was still a boy from Chicago and he was one of my heroes. Who wants Hugh Hefner to hate him? I quickly called Jim and told him I was coming over, as we had to talk.

  When I got to Jim’s, I explained my reasoning for coming clean with Hef. Jim didn’t want to go down as a liar with Hef. Besides, I reminded Jim that Hef’s security had confiscated Lynne’s tape. It was great stuff. We had to get our hands on it before Hef had it destroyed.

  We jumped into Jim’s car and drove back to the Mansion unannounced. Seeing that it was Jim, security readily let him through the gate. Hefner was inside. It was Sunday afternoon, and every Sunday afternoon Hef held screenings of classic films for his immediate friends and Bunnies. When Jim and I walked in, Hef was in the middle of telling those gathered about the Clifton ruse the night before. He said, “I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years. Nobody ever gets through my crack security team. NOBODY. But they did. I don’t know who those people were, but it was real Mission Impossible-like stuff.”

  Hef couldn’t believe his luck having Jim make an appearance two days in a row. “Jim, what are you doing here?” “It’s about last night, Hef. I wanted to come clean. I was in on it. Like I said, I’m right in the middle of shooting the Andy Kaufman film and this fellow next to me is Bob Zmuda. He was Andy’s writer. And last night he was Tony Clifton, a role he and Andy shared.” Hef sized me up, trying to comprehend what Jim was saying. Jim continued, “Andy, as you know, pulled pranks. So in the spirit of Andy, we decided to pull one on you. Please forgive us.” “Forgive you?” Hef said. “It was brilliant. Bob, you’ve got some balls. I have one security guy who wanted to clean Clifton’s clock out.” Then Hef walked over to his desk, picked up a videocassette, said, “I think this belongs to you,” and handed it back to Jim.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Playboy Mansion. I ran into the girl who Clifton had given the facial to. God, she was even more beautiful in the clear light of day. But then, as Tony would say, “My jism is known to get rid of wrinkles.” Later on, she was sitting in the parlor, rubbing Hef’s neck. Our eyes met, and she smiled. I looked down, somewhat embarrassed. After all, I wasn’t Tony, just plain old Bob. Where’s Clifton when you need him?

  ***

  Doing Clifton is like doing drugs. The more you do him, the more you want to do him, and the darker he can become on every outing if you don’t watch it, as Robert Louis Stevenson found in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. At first, Hyde is a lot of fun, pushing the boundaries of acceptable social behavior. But soon he becomes more brazen in his sinister behavior until he totally engulfs Dr. Jekyll. Kaufman and I would discuss this metamorphosis at great length: Was Clifton destroying Andy’s career? When Jim Carrey signed on to do the role, I forewarned him of these same dangers. Could Clifton injure Jim’s career as well?

  We would soon find out, for probably one of the most controversial episodes in Andy Kaufman’s career was when he, as Tony Clifton, was bodily thrown off the Paramount lot by security. Therefore, when the day came for Jim Carrey to recreate that scene, he too needed to put himself into the mindset of career suicide. So how does a handsome, $20 million per pic superstar get himself fired? Easy. He gets a billionaire who owns the whole damn studio to actually throw him out FOR REAL!!!

  In all the months that Lynne and I had been working with him, we had never seen him put himself in such a dangerous professional position. I saw real terror in Jim’s eyes that day. Had he finally gone too far in his quest to play Clifton? Was he now doing things that could actually jeopardize his own reputation? The sick bastard in me could only hope!

  That day Jim, already in makeup as Clifton, drove onto the Paramount lot. He was unusually cordial to the guards at the gate. This time he had to be. After all, he needed to get onto the lot to begin with in order to terrorize it later. Once in, he made a beeline straight for the commissary. Lynne and I followed closely, she with the documentary camera hidden low by her side. We entered the cafeteria. It was around lunchtime. The maitre d’ sat us among the other diners, made up of production personnel and studio executives. It was pretty much a chi-chi crowd with a hefty-priced lunch menu to match, thus keeping the studio’s day laborers and working stiffs out.

  Immediately Clifton’s voice shattered the tranquility. He saw two gentlemen nearby who were being served their dessert—chocolate cake. Clifton demanded that their cakes be put aside for him, as there may be not enough left. At first, the men tried to laugh and shrug it off, but Clifton only turned up both the volume and his obnoxiousness.

  It wasn’t long before he got the attention of another gentleman who was sitting further away, but was now himself swept up in Clifton’s bravado. It was Sumner Redstone, the billionaire owner of Paramount Pictures. He was not amused by Clifton. Remember, nobody knows this is Jim Carrey. Even if Redstone knew it was Jim, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference anyway. Hollywood has a class system all its own. Mere millionaires and stars like Jim to Redstone were a dime a dozen, meaning nothing. Soon one of his henchmen came up to Clifton and asked him to “hold it down.” I could see Jim was scared, but at the same time struggling to be true to all things Andy. He apologized by saying he suffered from Tourette’s syndrome and couldn’t control what came out of his mouth. The henchman walked away … Clifton apologizing? This was unheard of!

  And then I watched closely to see Clifton’s next move. This was the moment of truth—would Jim cave or not? After all, one of the most powerful men in town had just sent his goon over and told Clifton to behave himself! Seconds seemed like hours—would Jim fold? And then Clifton leapt to his feet and started strutting around the room singing, “HIGH HOPES!!!” loudly while occasionally telling diners, “DON’T WORRY—YOU’RE ALL GOING TO MAKE IT!” Soon security was back and demanding that he leave. I looked over at Redstone and he was not amused. We were escorted out. Clifton was now primed to shoot the scene of him being thrown off the Paramount lot.

  The next day Jim told DeVito what had happened. DeVito found it hysterically funny and decided to give Redstone, whom he knew, a call to tell him Clifton was in fact Jim Carrey. DeVito was taken aback that Redstone still didn’t find the humor in it all. Jim took a bullet for the team. Believe it or not, diligent documentarian Lynne captured the whole thing on tape by keeping the camera hidden. One day hopefully Jim will release the doc and you’ll get to see for yourselves just how brave he was. Just like Andy.

  For years I’ve been haunted by those words Clifton kept repeating to those at the Paramount commissary: “DON’T WORRY. YOU’RE ALL GOING TO MAKE IT!” What did Clifton mean by it? What did Jim mean by it? I now believe it was a rare insight into Jim Carrey himself. As Clifton (a man with Tourette’s), Jim let it slip. I believe he was telling us all sarcastically through Clifton that fame and fortune is an illusion. It’s not all what it’s cracked up to be. It will not save you. He knew it would not save him.

  Even though Lynne’s and my main job was to provide Jim with as much insight into Andy as we could, and in Lynne’s case also assist Courtney Love with the nuances of Lynne and Andy’s relationship, still from time to time we found ourselves on the set when a scene would be filmed that we knew never took place in real life. Usually in such cases, we’d simply hide out at the food truck or use the opportunity to return ph
one calls. When one of our characters was in one of these scenes, we couldn’t help but be anxious about what dialogue the writers were putting into our mouths. Nine times out of ten they got it right, but occasionally when they got it wrong, it was excruciating for us and almost impossible for us not to speak up.

  In my case, there was one scene in particular where George Shapiro (DeVito) was scolding Andy (Jim) and me (Paul Giamatti) as if we were two little kids. This scene was driving me crazy mainly because it never happened in real life. George may or may not have scolded Andy when they were alone together, but George never would have scolded me. Our relationship wasn’t like that. George and I were equals and always respectful of each other.

  So when they were rehearsing the scene, Giamatti could see me wincing off camera. During a break in the action, he came up to me to ask what was wrong. I told him point-blank, “It never would’ve come down like this.” He asked me what I thought we should do about it. I told him since it was one of DeVito’s big scenes, I didn’t want to make waves.

  When they went back to shooting the scene and George started his scolding again, Giamatti improvised and said, “George, don’t be such an asshole!” I almost fell out of my chair! DeVito hated it. After all, who likes to be called an asshole? Later, Lynne told me she saw Danny go up to Milos right afterward to complain about it and suggest using a different take. So I was quite surprised when I saw the final film and Milos had left it in. I can’t help but think that Milos got a little revenge.